Zacharias Allewelt


Zacharias Allewelt was a Danish-Norwegian sea captain.
Allewelt was born in Bergen in 1682. In 1725 and 1726 he sailed the galiot Den unge Jomfrue on a triangular route to Guinea, where he picked up a cargo of slaves and then proceeded to the Danish West Indies in the Caribbean. He later sailed for the Asiatic Company, first as the chief officer on the Slesvig, and then starting in 1735 as captain of the Dronningen av Danmark. He made three journeys to Guangzhou, China. There Chinese artists fired two life-size clay busts of him; one is now kept at the Aust-Agder Cultural History Center in Arendal, Norway, and the other is at the M/S Maritime Museum of Denmark in Kronborg.
Allewelt married Gjertrud Andersdatter Dahll from Neskilen in Eydehavn in 1725. They lived alternately in Copenhagen and at the Merdø farm on Merdø island in Arendal.
He died in Copenhagen in 1744.